For many years I’ve put much too much emphasis on the things I own, often loathing to get of them. Some of it was I’ve never had trash pickup and what I couldn’t burn up in the woods, I had to haul to the transfer station and pay to get rid of. And then I thought about the crushed debris sitting in the landfill – the growing mound sitting outside my office window, whether it was when I was working in the Pine Bush or downtown in the Alfred E Smith skyscraper.

But the truth ultimately is that it doesn’t matter. Landfill space remains remarkably cheap, as large highly engineered dumping grounds have been built across America, mostly these days in more rural areas due to regulation, nimbyism and the high cost of urban land. Trash disposal is cheap, in many cases between $50-100 a ton at least if you self haul. And that’s a lot of trash, especially uncompacted – it’s 2,000 lbs of anything you’d want to get rid of with only a few narrow exceptions for the most toxic materials like lead acid car batteries, tires and highly radio active crap. I doubt I really own even 2,000 lb of stuff.

While I have nothing but disdain for consumerism and curbside trash pickup (I’d rather burn it or at least haul to the transfer station) , it’s also kind of libertating to now how cheaper garbage disposal really is. How you don’t have to feel trapped by all of your junk, how it’s relatively easy and inexpensive to get rid of if you don’t want it any more. Obviously though, the best solution is to own as little junk as possible.